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Aegon and the Iron Bank Debt


Tywin Manderly

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Massey is to hire no fewer than 20000 men.

Stannis thought it possible even if Goolden Company was unavailable. But was he taking into account Pono and Daenerys?

and Stannis already has thousands of men on his side and before long will have taken the North.

Had, before seven days battle.

Not to mention that Stannis is a better commander than anyone Aegon has.

He did not face Jon in Robellion. Nor the leaders of Golden Company.
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That proven track records includes getting beaten at Blackwater.

As opposed to jons track record, which includes getting beaten at the battle of the bells, and, what else? Oh thats right, the only battle he ever commanded he lost.

Anyway, yeah as has been said there are plenty of sellswords in essos. And Stannis asks for no less then 20k, so thats the minimum he wants(he also asks for more bows) If it came down to 10 thousand golden company with jon leading them vs 20k other sellswords with Stannis leading them my cash would be on stannis. Regardless of what hollywood and videogames have told you, numbers DO count, and apart from a few famous and often cited famous battles, the numerically inferior force will often lose as it as a severe disadvantage. An amazing commander with numerical superiority would have to make a rather large mistake to lose, or be extremely unlucky.

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Yeah so when did Jon became the guy to beat. Stannis is still the best commander in Westeros as of right now and also has a proven track record. Randyll tarly comes after him.

Where is this coming from? Please correct me if I am wrong, Stannis commanded two battles.

1. The blackwater, where he shown himself to be severely incompetent in the planning and preparation part, as well as choosing his under commanders. Lost the battle horribly.

2. Battle of the wall, shown somewhat above average competence.

Where there any other land battles I am forgetting (He seems to be a great when it comes to naval battles but it's not really relevant here)?

Sure, Stannis has experience in his favor, but his generalship is not consistent at best.

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Anyway, yeah as has been said there are plenty of sellswords in essos. And Stannis asks for no less then 20k, so thats the minimum he wants(he also asks for more bows) If it came down to 10 thousand golden company with jon leading them vs 20k other sellswords with Stannis leading them my cash would be on stannis. Regardless of what hollywood and videogames have told you, numbers DO count, and apart from a few famous and often cited famous battles, the numerically inferior force will often lose as it as a severe disadvantage. An amazing commander with numerical superiority would have to make a rather large mistake to lose, or be extremely unlucky.

I had somewhat similar discussion about this on the forum before. Numbers are just one of many factors, just like the competence of the general.

There are many many other factors you are forgetting, like the competence of the lower commanders, the terrain and weather if said army is experienced in it and equipped to deal with it, the competence of the soldiers, their arms, their supply, the time they had to rest before the battle.

Psychological state and belief in the cause are extremely important (tends to be low among sell swords).

The competence of intelligence gathering, and distribution, communications, how strong is the chain of command (it's a lot harder to control and maneuver dozen of 'armies" who have little experience of working together and who's leaders are not trained in that, against a cohesive force).

The terrain and it's relation to the composition of each force, and so on.

I am not some great battle historian, so I cannot refute or accept that being numerically inferior was the deciding factor in most such battles.

However when I gloss in my mind over some historical battles I remember I think you're wrong. Though that depends on what you call numerical inferiority (if as steep as 2:1 then you might be correct). But otherwise I don't believe the correlation is anywhere as strong as you suggest.

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Where is this coming from? Please correct me if I am wrong, Stannis commanded two battles.

1. The blackwater, where he shown himself to be severely incompetent in the planning and preparation part, as well as choosing his under commanders. Lost the battle horribly.

2. Battle of the wall, shown somewhat above average competence.

Where there any other land battles I am forgetting (He seems to be a great when it comes to naval battles but it's not really relevant here)?

Sure, Stannis has experience in his favor, but his generalship is not consistent at best.

At Blackwater he lost, after an army of 80,000 attacked him in the rear. That links to what E-Ro said about the numbers, y'know? His mistake was appointing Imry Florent as the admiral - but even if it was someone/Florent would listen to Davos, the final result would be similar. The Wildfire boom was inevitable, I think.

At Battle of the Wall he won against a huge wildling army.

He also subdued Great Wyk and took Dragonstone from Targaryen loyalists - which seems to be one of the very few cases, where Dragonstone was taken.

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If fAegon or Dany ignore the debt, they do so at their own peril. The Iron Bank gets its due...or else.

The Iron Bank names the debt as belonging to the IT, even though it was mostly Robert's doing. I'd think, if I were a non Baratheon and wanted or wound up on the IT, I would make some type of deal with the Braavosi. They should open some type of negotiations, and see if the Bank would be interested in obtaining partial payment of the debt. It seems only fair, allow the Bank to recoup some of the losses but acknowledge that the new king or queen didn't really rack up the debt, but still.......was willing to pay a fair portion of it. In the real world, countries and debt are revalued all the time, sometimes........debt or interest is waived away. I could see a deal like that happening between a final IT contender and the Iron Bank.

Besides, that would just piss off the shade of Stannis (as I suppose he'd be dead if the IB is looking for someone else to pay the debt). I could hear Stannis ghost grinding his teeth about the injustice of it all.

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I had somewhat similar discussion about this on the forum before. Numbers are just one of many factors, just like the competence of the general.

There are many many other factors you are forgetting, like the competence of the lower commanders, the terrain and weather if said army is experienced in it and equipped to deal with it, the competence of the soldiers, their arms, their supply, the time they had to rest before the battle.

Psychological state and belief in the cause are extremely important (tends to be low among sell swords).

The competence of intelligence gathering, and distribution, communications, how strong is the chain of command (it's a lot harder to control and maneuver dozen of 'armies" who have little experience of working together and who's leaders are not trained in that, against a cohesive force).

The terrain and it's relation to the composition of each force, and so on.

Yeah all that is well and good, but if your force of 5 thousand is up against a force of 60 thousand, you are fucked no matter what. Unless your technological advantage is so much greater then that of the enemies.(think tanks vs knights) Look at the greeks vs the persians at thermopylae the greeks had some 7 thousand men, and FAR superior to the slave soldiers being thrown at them, they had a superior position, better morale etc. and still lost. all the factors you listed are important. but numbers rank higher then most everything you listed(other then quality of leadership I would say)

I am not some great battle historian, so I cannot refute or accept that being numerically inferior was the deciding factor in most such battles.

However when I gloss in my mind over some historical battles I remember I think you're wrong. Though that depends on what you call numerical inferiority (if as steep as 2:1 then you might be correct). But otherwise I don't believe the correlation is anywhere as strong as you suggest.

Yes, when you go over historical battles off the top of your head you remember great battles in which the numerically inferior force won. thats because those battles are idolized by everyone, and made famous because people love it when the underdogs wins. But the fact of the matter is that if numbers were just one factor and equal to all other facotrs that decide the outcome of a battle lords and leaders of armies would not be trying to squeeze as many men as they can possibly feed into their forces.

Where is this coming from? Please correct me if I am wrong, Stannis commanded two battles.

1. The blackwater, where he shown himself to be severely incompetent in the planning and preparation part, as well as choosing his under commanders. Lost the battle horribly.

2. Battle of the wall, shown somewhat above average competence.

Where there any other land battles I am forgetting (He seems to be a great when it comes to naval battles but it's not really relevant here)?

Sure, Stannis has experience in his favor, but his generalship is not consistent at best.

what? this is rather daft. why does the fact that the battle at fair isle was a naval engagement matter? Leading men, at land or at sea is the same exact thing. If you can formulate a plan and execute that plan at land you can do the same at sea and vice versa.

As for battles you completely left out there is the fighting at storms end when stannis held it against the reach at the age of 17.(we know there was fighting because donal noye lost his arm there) there is also the cleaning out of deepwood motte.

See my sig as well, asha says how the common men have such faith in him. Stannis is a well established leader. that is fact. Denying it, gets you nowhere.

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1. Not sure what you mean by the first sentence. I'm not disputing that he could raise 20,000 men, I'm saying that he may well get more. What do Pono and Daenerys have to do with it.

Be threat to many of the Free Cities. Volantis, Qohor, Norvos are in danger of Pono and Daenerys, and they are therefore likely hiring the sellswords available in Essos - remember that they cannot buy Unsullied any more.

Will Iron Bank manage to outbid the rest of Essos to get these 20 000? And remember that Lys, Myr, Tyrosh, Pentos are in danger as well. Pentos certainly because Dothraki can get through there, as Drogo and many others show (and Illyrio´s deal was with Drogo not Pono), and Lys and Tyrosh are among slavers who must mobilize against Daenerys.

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Im going to copy paste a post i made on Stannis' ability at war.

I would say Stannis Baratheon is one of, if not the best battle commander. Let’s start with his holding storms end. (At the age of 17)

During Roberts’s rebellion Stannis is put in charge of holding storms end, an easy enough task until about 100 thousand tyrells show up and put him under siege. Then after some time the garrison begins to starve, no shipments of food and soon enough men start to question why they should starve for their lord when they will be given amnesty. The fact that stannis is able to keep complete control of the castle and keep discipline in starving men AT THE AGE OF 17 is miraculous and shows how good of a leader he really is. Yes, this victory does not show any type of logistical or organizational skills, but it does show his iron will, tenacity, and never give up no matter what attitude. He stops at nothing; he will get the job done or die trying.

Then he is tasked with taking Dragonstone, now this is interesting in that Robert entrusts this seemingly important task to his younger brother, instead of someone else. We don’t really know much but stannis takes the castle and Dany and Viserys are smuggled out by the last targ loyalists in the westeros.

Fast forward a bit and we have the greyjoy rebellion. The greyjoys rebel and burn lord tywins fleet, also raiding in the riverlands. Robert baratheon entrusts Stannis with the complete and utter destruction of the ironborn fleet. Now, before we get into the skill required let’s think about the gravity of this task and what failure would have meant. The ironborn live on islands, so destruction of their fleet is imperative to success in the war, should Robert ignore their fleet he won’t be able to transport any good amount of men to the islands to fight. Cramming ships with men when an enemy fleet of raiders is prowling around is not a good idea. The mainland ships would be slow and vulnerable while so full of men and supplies. The ironborn would have had a field day with this, they would catch up to Roberts fleet and sink a ton of ships, crippling Roberts ability to smash the ironborn and leaving westeros vulnerable to more raids. So destroying the iron fleet is an extremely important task. Robert once again entrusts an extremely important task to his little brother Stannis. Failure was not an option as it would mean the royal fleet and the redwynne fleet (the only 2 fleets left to them at this point) would be smashed leaving Robert unable to get any men at all to the islands. We don’t know the details of the battle, but we do know a few things. The ironborn fleet was commanded by an excellent naval commander (say what you will of vic, at sea he knows his shit), we also know the ironborn sail, reave, and raid all day every day. So one on one, each ironborn will be superior to the average westerosi man at sea. The ironborn weakness is at land, not sea. At one point they controlled everywhere you could hear the waves, underestimating them just to wave away Stannis’ accomplishment at this battle is stupid and unproductive. Stannis manages to trap them at fair isle and bring the full capabilities of the royal and redwynne fleet to bear, smashing the iron fleet and paving the way for troops to be landed on the isles.

After his smashing victory at Fair Isle Stannis is entrusted with taking great wyke, no details are given other than the fact that great wyk falls to Stannis.

Fast forward once again and we come to the war of five kings, the first engagement Stannis fights in this war is the blackwater. His only defeat ever, but I think this battle is an interesting one, I also feel that it does not in any way lessen the fact that stannis is among the best. First of all, he had pretty much won, the men in the city were broken, running and killing their leaders to retreat. The leader tyrion was mia, it was chaos. Then 100 thousand tyrels and lannisters show up and charge Stannis in his rear, Stannis manages to orgainise a rearguard and him and his best men fight their way clear of kl while tons of his troops switch sides thanks to renlys ghost (fucking uneducated traitors) The mistake Stannis made here was not actually made here, it was made after he had renlys cavalry. What I think he should have done is go to bitterbridge executed Randyle tarly(he’s to dangerous/ambitious to be left alive) and taken the infantry and gotten mace to bend the knee to him. Had he of done that, he would have won the war as tywin can’t fight all that power, it’s simply not feasible. The blackwater was lost by Stannis its true, but I can’t really say that it was a blunder. No way could he have taken all those enemies on while his men were storming a fortified position and switching sides at the same time. Remember hindsight is 20/20 and with the information Stannis had at the time, the decision to take KL was a good one, especially with tywin engaged against robb.

Then we have the battle at the wall. Let me start by saying that after the defeat at KL most men would have given up, but not stannis. An important part of being successful in life is how you respond to failure, at some point or another EVERYONE fucks up somehow. The fact that Stannis is willing to continue his war even after such a demoralizing defeat speaks volumes of the man’s character. He doesn’t give a fuck, he won’t ever stop. Now onto the battle itself.

Stannis uses the men of Eastwatch to guide him and his thousand men to castle black. He launches a phenomenal three pronged assault on the wilding horde. He attacks the wildling soldiers and Mance tries to put up an effective defense, but it’s too little too late. Stannis has three columns of heavy horse assault Mances men. Stannis knows he can’t hope to take Mance in a pitched battle, Mance has too many men it’s simply not feasible at all. So he plays to his strengths, he knows that individually his men are better equipped and trained then your average wildling so he launches a daring and bold lightning attack designed to capture or kill the enemy commander or cause as much chaos and discord in the enemy ranks as possible getting them to break or accomplishing both tasks (which he does). Mance also had unconventional wepons in the form of giants and mammoths. No other commander in westeros has ever fought anything like this before, it was stannis’ first time against them as well. They manage to perform very well against the armored column sent against them. But the failure of one column did not affect the other two, now that is a damn good showing of Stannis’ leadership. This is imo, Stannis’ most impressive victory. Mance is himself no slouch at leading his men, he jumps right into action as soon as he hears the trumpets blaring, it’s too bad for him that Stannis planned this attack in such a way that it would have been extremely hard for Mance to win. The battle was not lost because of mances incompetence; it was lost because Stannis played to his strengths. He smashed an army far larger then his, and the wildlings had unconventional weapons in the form of giants and mammoths. We see how he split his heavy horse into 3 separate columns to surround, encircle, and crush mances hosts ability to fight back. His assault on the wildings completely demoralized them and crippled their ability to respond. He accomplished all of his objectives here, the complete and utter destruction of the wildlings ability to wage war, and the capture of the king beyond the wall.

Let me now address some common point’s people who don’t really know what they are talking about in regards to medieval warfare use to lessen this accomplishment.

1. The wildings had only a few thousand warriors!

That’s not true. Mances horde is placed at 100k people. Now the rate of fighting men in the wildling society is far greater then that of most other places. This is due to their lifestyle and their values. Its an extremely warlike society and only the strong survive for long. Even some of their women fight. These people will be big, strong, and fierce. We also have this quote by stannis on the wildling host.

Stannis bristled at that. "I defeated your uncle Victarion and his Iron Fleet off Fair Isle, the first time your father crowned himself. I held Storm's End against the power of the Reach for a year, and took Dragonstone from the Targaryens. I smashed Mance Rayder at the Wall

, though he had twenty times my numbers. Tell me, turncloak, what battles has the Bastard of Bolton ever won that I should fear him?"

Twenty times his numbers is not accurate if Stannis is counting all the wildings in the horde, if hes including the old men, children, and woman who don’t fight the wildings have 100 times his numbers(he has 1k men the wilding host is 100k strong) so Stannis is counting only the wilding warriors. The ones that actually fight.

2. The wildings are ill equipped and have no formal training at arms!

This is true; they don’t have training by a master at arms fight with lesser weapons and are not very disciplined. But they are fierce, savage and have a huge number of fighters compared to stannis. I also find it troubling that people use the fact that stannis’ men are better equipped than the wildings as a way to lessen this victory. That’s nonsense. A good commander uses his men’s strengths to his advantage, and he tries to downplay their weaknesses. That’s precisely what makes him a good commander. Furthermore, you won’t hear any historian ever say how a better equipped forces leader is not good because his men had better equipment. Think about it, no one bitches about the romans having better equipment and training then 90% of their enemies, same for alexander the great his men were far superior to what he was fighting, yet no one says “lol brah he sucks because his men were better than the enemy” Also, let’s put some of you guys saying this about the wildlings in some plate or mail, give you a steel weapon and put you up against 5 screaming savages intent on killing you and see how long it takes them to knock you down and kill the shit out of you.

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2:1 odds are not good although it's been done. The British during numerous battles in the Hundred Years War (Agicourt, Cercy, Pointers), Hannibal against the Roman's 3 times, and the Romans against many opponents, barbarians, Gauls, and each other (RE: Ceasar Vs. Pompey). Of course the plan for both sides in the books will be to get more soldiers and, as stated above, more lords to swear to each side. Inz my estimation Stannis is a very good military commander but one who may need to work on his logistics a bit. Ageon is unproven but could be very good like Robb, or in real life Alexander the Great, another young king who was tutored by a philosopher. If Stannis and Ageon meet in battle it should be very interesting. First though they have to beat the Bolton's and Tyrells respectively.


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